Amid Pandemic, Dozens Of Health Professionals Petition For Tech Companies To Curtail Misinformation

Dozens of doctors, nurses, and health experts are asking fellow professionals in the space to sign an open letter demanding more action from social platforms to stem misinformation about the coronavirus, and other health conspiracies.

The efforts are being organized via AVAAZ, a U.S.-based nonprofit that promotes global activism in various fields, and which has tangled with YouTube in the past with respect to climate misinformation. While the group’s letter does mention conspiracies and misleading content surrounding the coronavirus — that it can be cured by cocaine, for instance, or was developed as a biological weapon — it also calls out conspiracies that are popular across the anti-vax movement, such as that Americans were given a ‘cancer virus’ via the polio shot.

“As doctors, nurses, and health experts from around the world, we are here to sound the alarm,” the open letter reads. “By promoting bogus cures, or scaring people off vaccines and effective treatments, these lies matter. And they travel far — one Facebook post claiming ginger is 10,000 times more effective at beating cancer than chemotherapy has been liked, shared, and commented on almost 30,000 times.”

To this end, the campaign is demanding two key actions from tech companies. First, they are asking that platforms correct the record on health information, alerting every single person who has interacted with conspiracies and sharing with them an independently-derived fact-check. “While platforms like Facebook have already moved to label fact-checked misinformation,” the letter notes, “this system does not go far enough since millions of people may have seen a post before it is fact-checked and labeled.”

And second, health pros are demanding platform alter algorithms so inaccurate information is downgraded, and that the pages and channels of repeat offenders are removed from algorithms that recommend content altogether.

For her part, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki has recently spoken about the platform’s efforts to curtail misinformation about the coronavirus, including removing videos promoting miracle cures or other medically unsubstantiated claims, as well as any videos that contradict the World Health Organization (WHO)’s recommendations about social distancing.